Understanding

Then the river

Plunged

And our nudity

Laughed.



Afterwards, the tree shadows

Slept on the banks

inside each other



Thoughtless.



And the night

Interrogated our dreams.







The morning woke from the fog

and the sun

from the river



And smiled

indulgent.

Passing

1

Streetlights wrapped in fog

The pavement mistakes nine for zero

Tall in dreadlocks and jeans

She passes

I turn to see her recede

The appointment of our previous loves

Lost in a turbulent crossing

poetry of my youth

I let her pass.

            2

In the auto queue

I do not understand the exchange of eyes

The breadth of her shoulders quiver

Her fingers are restless on her friend’s

and behind her back her fingers

speak in Tamil

Inside, her face flicks a turn,

and again

And my fingers seek darkness

At our destination

I pay my fare

She waits

DARJ - Oct, 2011

You talk of turmeric dust sunlight on fir trees

and I let you tell me once more

those old tales, of month long holidays

through winding lanes of cloud crossings,

of dew on your brow.



Darj was a fairy tale of infant clouds

coming in through our windows.

The discovery of chilled sweet milk

that I knew instantly as ambrosia.

Of the Glenary’s aroma that lifted one suddenly

on a sandpapered summer sunset at Connaught Place

from the anguish of loss of another day of youth.



71 took it to the promise of a life-style ad.

In fragile blue and white

overseen by the Gold Thigh Mountain

as that gold-winged sunset from Glenary’s.

(Imagined?) Were you there as her then?

Such would be youth and love ever after



We look for the steep lane

from the station to the Rest House

to the then remote south

in our separate memories of separate years.

Is this one it? Or this?

Hot milk and jalebis in foggy mornings

are probably sepia now. As we know

the day long toy train from NJP is.



Those old tales of memory finding

a place as it had left four decades ago,

(even in parts)

I begin to believe.

NOSTALGIA

A squirrel moves a wall to black and white and the electric clock. A girl’s head flits through a square of darkness between bare bricks on the first floor. A half window, boned, leaning. A creeper hammocks on the TV cable on a pearl and graphite sky.

Take me home.



Girls wear skirts again. Pujas in three weeks. I look for him with a shadow on the upper lip and yell, “Your mum won’t suffer your life.”



On the way to office, it looks like rain.

Freeing Love

You shall not cheat. I will

not be judged by Sahu the grocer.



I do. Not on earth or water

or gauzy winds in azure skies



But I do. So there.

My open upturned palms

I can look at you now

I can look at you

now in this winter of the hashish fragrance of the chhatim tree

That is everywhere.

That has swept away the cotton smell of my mother

And the milky scent of my woman

And the spunky odour of the sea

That trails the dark women of my madness



I can look at you now

That the silk cotton tree is naked



And through its branches



I can see

your crystalline solitude.

THE FOOL

He tells me

He knows the street from the stage.

He is not all pose.



Yes, he catches fire sometimes,

Once in a while,

Ignited by a certain darkness of skin

Of the steaming undergrowth

Of tropical forests



Or a mind



Or a face that looks like a mind of a certain kind

With an affinity for crests of waves.

And the lack of it



For things.



And, yes,

He is unable to surrender to that fire

Or lift a finger to quench it



Which has left him so rare

That he is unable to sink



Or float.



He tells me

We are not what we seem



For we are seen by light





And that



Is constantly



Changing.

ID

He tells me

He knows the street from the stage.

He is not all pose.



Yes, he catches fire sometimes,

Once in a while,

Ignited by a certain darkness of skin

Of the steaming undergrowth

Of tropical forests



Or a mind



Or a face that looks like a mind of a certain kind

With an affinity for crests of waves.

And the lack of it



For things.



And, yes,

He is unable to surrender to that fire

Or lift a finger to quench it



Which has left him so rare

That he is unable to sink



Or float.



He tells me

We are not what we seem



For we are seen by light





And that



Is constantly



Changing.

Forest Dreams

Dappled sunlight of the fragrant forest

measures the highs and lows

Filled in dust coloured leaves.

Sentinel tree trunks lost in lofty dreamy winds.

You begin to get undone



You let things be



You will the shadow of a tiger in every bush

A bird call takes your mind away

to pubertal breezes of love.



You would sleep that afternoon of squirrels,

curled in the after-love of trees,

to whispered ancient stories

floating hillock to swaying hillock.



But then the unseen ocean

Sweeps you to your counting table

To balance your books

of duties

And desires.



Do you dare?

Why is it ?

Why is it
that all around you
a strange silence breathes?
Of the leaf falling,
Of sparrows chirping
on a summer noon
The shade of a mango tree
heavy with sleep
The net of light
through a ventilator
near the ceiling
in a darkened room.

Why is it
that when I am with you
sunsets of impossible years
slip their frames
and seep on to the sky outside
watching?

The exile revisited

This morning, I wouldn't know, if intentional or a quirk of fate or mischief, I found in my mail box a mail that I had sent to my mentor soon after being despatched to Dhanbad- 'transfer,' my employers call it, I call it punishment for sins I had never been aware of having committed. After the hell of 2 yrs and 8 months in exile, I am back with my family, after having been through hell and having literally begged on my knees for a transfer after my wife got afflicted with cancer.

I am grateful for the 'quirk of fate' of having a mail sent 3 yrs ago returned to me in legible form and I think it deserves to be posted on this blog. It follows :-

"Thank you sir. I need your blessings.

I have been made HOD of MIning Deptt. Normally people of M2 level are posted as HOD. There are 10 E5/E4 experienced mining/environment discipline officers, called Planners under me. I have to supervise their job, see that specific jobs are delivered on target dates, co-ordinate with other Deptt like, E&M, Geology, Civil, liaise with (a coal producing company I will not name for I too have to live), etc.. And I know nothing of planning. The work involves, apart from drawing up Project Reports, Mining Plans, necessary for Environmental clearance, which are now necessary even for underground mines, Fire-Fighting Projects, etc.

(Our company) is a ISO 9000:2000 company. The work of every officer is billed. There is a statement showing the number of days the officer was present and the number of days he was billed for. Payment for every job is made in Engineering Days.

Presently I have been provided accommodation in a Transit Camp, which is in an apalling state, though I am sure it is better than that provided in most areas of (3 nationalised coal producing companies in eastern India).

There is no system of cleaning the Transit Camp. It is a duplex D type quarter, looked after by the wife of a private car driver, who occupies the servants' quarters and half of the ground floor drawing/dining, since the Care-taker took VRS and the post was abolished.

I have been given a bed in the 1st floor. The sheet is clean with a clean pillow. The other bed has dunlopillo cushion whose covering cotton enclosure is torn in strips. It was full of cobwebs and dust. There is a dressing table and a table which have taken on a permanent coat of dust. On the dressing table was an old dirty comb with hair on it, a little bottle of mustard oil, and other things that the previous occupant didnt need to carry away when he was rid of the place.

The toilet is extremely dirty and the flush was broken but has now been repaired. There was a low power incandescent bulb that was necessary to add to the gloom. And there were left over pieces of soap, scrub and shampoo pouches. But I was not surprised by all this. In my transfer from BCCL to CCL I experienced worse and expect nothing better from Coal India Limited. I was surprised that there were no termites.

After two days of cajolling the lady/acting caretaker the room was persuaded by a fifty rupee note to clean up the room, to some extent; cobwebs are still there in some of the windows and some below the bed.

The lady cooks for me and another officer, another forced bachelor Geo-physicist from Nagpur who lives in the ground floor. I am happy with the 3 hot vegetarian meals I get. I have had to procure mineral water from outside Koyla Nagar (I love the name, it had to be coal; I love the word Black Diamond, I think it must have been coined by a Bihari/north Indian, they have a unique sense of humour).

I am sorry I have burdened you with all this. You have faced worse in your younger days. I have heard the story of a snake in the bed roll of an officer when he returned after leave and that of a tiger on the way to the incline. But now I am approaching 50 and a little tired of all this. In my very comfortable stay at Kolkata, though in a job that I had gotten utterly sick of having been at it for 15 years, I had forgotten that I was a servant and I need the salary badly.

I am trying to get a hang of the job. I must give the company what I can in return for the salary which brings home the bread for me, which I have always done. For 3 years. Then we shall see.

The problem with (the holding company that recruited me from BHU-IT campus) that it has always been a single focus company with one goal. Get coal. The supporting systems have not got the attention they needed. I think the Manager should be the last man for the responsibility for production. The SAM/Agent should give support to the production activity in his sphere of responsibility. Ditto the GM. Here we have CMDs screaming daily regarding production. While Personnel Officers make tours to the HQ even as there is a strike in the colliery. The Finance Manager goes home to Kolkata with the keys for cash. I so badly want to write to somebody who has the authority to change things, even though I know, knew since I joined ___ in 1981, that its days are numbered."

I would modify that ending now. That company, wonder of wonders, survives and will continue to survive, and qualified, honest, sincere, hard working, executives of the company will continue to be trapped into employment with it and thereafter raped lifelong to produce the coal that is its bread and butter and the fruits of its success shall continue to be enjoyed by unqualified people - Guest House care-takers who rise to become Directors (Personnel), (nearly all its high ranking personnel managers joined as clerks or workmen, no problem there, but look at their qualifications in Personnel Management/HR, yes they have heard the term) chainmen who become Chief Mining Engineers, etc.

However, now that I have seen the darkest nights, I have hope. The company has become a Navaratna, that is it pretends to be free to take its own decisions, even though insiders know that the Ministry has the final word. It is about to launch an IPO. So I might hope that in 20-25 yrs, we shall see an end to stupid idiots from villages of Bihar and UP who joined as clerks, security guards and care-takers rise to become Directors while engineers from IITs are transformed into clerks.

The Migrant worker's poem

Bare branches of the champak tree
And two forlorn flowers
Cast loneliness at the cold breath
Of ashen skies

No sunset today.

Sleep has exhausted its dreams
And at night
Having set up his mosquito net
He scratches his chest and loins
And sifts through fantasies
For names of pleasures
That would do

Reluctantly tuck in
And slip off to oblivion

Morning comes with an upsetting configuration
Of the hands of the watch

Hours pass,
Late for office.
And hours pass
And tea and cigarette times.
And time for lunch
And a quick siesta
And the two hours
Of the second half.

And tea at the shanty
And lightening conversation of fellow ghosts
Tuesday gone
And another three to go.

But the return

The return

Wherever you go
The return!

Kolya Nagar, Dhanbad, Late 2008/early 2009?

Is

Ashes float in the sunlight of the new rice
And the deep purple melancholy
That oozes from every pore of the earth
And congeals around the trunks of deceiving luminescent green
(leaping to low branches in evenings)

The empty cold wind turning
Turning on itself
And again
Floating on the new light of the new year
Can no more lead me astray
To her tripping alleys of pleasure
Of the mischievous running staircases to the terrace
Of skirts and knees and the warm surrender of laughter on my chest
Of her hair on my neck across her face of the salt of her kiss
Of the fullness of love.

No more.
For I who have traversed fifty cycles of the sun
Who has been drowned nine lifetimes
In the endless gutters of monsoon afternoons
Who has lost his steed and sword
And is condemned to ration queues for life
When on a wrong turn of the dice
Exchanged a Mohenjodaro of sighs
For the endless brook of her chitter chatter
Who in the endless wait for the yet unformed
Has watched kites as dusk condensed on her inconsolables.

Have worked it out (though not understood)
That only the light
Is.

03/01/2008, 06/01/08, 27/2/08

Sin, unoriginal

The wind damp, cool, south-west
The mind ashen, like the widow’s sari, drying
The stone quartz, peeping out of the home earth to trip you
The dream, the battles, the ploughed earth, the blood.


Water

The sky beaten cotton in the floating cold
The belt tight, the collar, tight
Marbles, heavy pockets.
The returning report card.


The skirt, underneath
The mind Black, stone, iron, chest
Bruised knees Bruised elbows
Fifty lashes on the back of a choking soul

Air
City, petrolly
Indifferent, grime.

Never another morning


Mother, mother….


May the Light forgive you.

Goldfish

Time
like a falling stone
through yellow green foliage
through sunlight of the liquor tea.
Feelings
half understood

After half a life
Sometimes
Pebbles on the stream bed.

Then
Life
is that love
as the gold fish.

Assault on Mumbai - India's action, Pakistan's response

This is interesting.

First India wants Pakistan to send its Chief of ISI. Pakistani PM agrees and then back-tracks.

India then seeks 21 masterminds of terror from Pakistan. Till today Pakistan has not agreed. Rather it is seeking international protection against attack by India.

What does that tell me? In the first instance, Pakistan is dancing to the tune of its army, the only agency other than its fundamentalist maulvis who are anti-India.

The second is more interesting. The Congress government is desperately seeking to save face with the nation. It has already sacrificed Shivraj Patil, its Home Minister, (from whose residence, I quote Malvika Singh in the TOI, his son runs his own private business). But the weak civilian government of Pakistan, is not allowed to release some of the 21 that India seeks, including at least Dawood Ibrahim.

This is a great farce in the line with the history of the sub-continent where one tune has played true throughout the ages. That of domestic squabbles when faced with a serious enemy.

The enemy today, for both the countries, is fundamentalist Islamic/Pakistani Military sponsored terrorism. But Pakistan is unable to acknowledge that. For then its mullahs would raise hell with the illiterate Muslim people of both the countries. And its military would tell Mr. Ten Percent 'Enough is enough. Go elsewhere and let us, who have the real power to run this country, run it.'

On one level I am enjoying the show, while Pranab Mukherjee wipes the sweat off his brow and the delicate Sonia is vexed, taxing her limited intelligence to find a solution, and the great 'baba' who, like his grandma, thinks that the democracy of India is family fiefdom, mouths Bollywood style dialogues. And on another I am so frustrated. The solution is so easy, if one is to set political ambition aside and dedicate oneself to the interests of the country. There will never be a greater opportunity. Even the President elect of the defacto rulers of the world has said India has a right to self defence. Here I am not advocating a senseless war against Pakistan. I would just have the present masters of India's destiny to drive the world to take over the job of eliminating the terrorist networks controlled by both/either of the two forces that control them, that is the Pakistani military/Islamic fundamentalists under the banner of the United Nations lead by the USA.

For now, the question of can we do it will be forestalled by the question whether it is in the interest of the Congress.

Terrorist attack on Mumbai

In the perspective of what has just happened I think it is time now that India tackled this menace proactively. We have to now to learn from Israel and follow its methods. After the slaughter of its athletes in the Munich Olympics, Israel constituted a team to eliminate each and everyone of the terrorists involved directly or indirectly. This has now been made into a beautiful film by Steven Spielberg titled 'Munich'. And the rescue of the hostages at Entebbe Airport still remains one of the most successful efforts in countering terrorism. And look at Israel today. Even though it is the enemy number one of the Islamic fundamentalists it has been successful in staving off major terrorist attacks on its soil. Why? Because no attack on it is allowed to go unpunished. The USA too has been able to prevent terrorist attacks on its soil. This has to be attributed in part to its excellent defensive measures. However, one has to take cognizance of its offensive measures too.

So it is time that the Government of India constituted a team to go and seek the masterminds and funders of the Mumbai attack and any subsequent attacks and eliminate them, even if it means violating the sovereignty of Pakistan or Bangladesh or any other country, even if it means eliminating General Musharraf or the top brass of the Pakistani Army, who might very well be behind the attack on Mumbai.

Also, I think that it is of utmost importance to start a global movement against terror emanating from Pakistan. India should go about convincing the powers that be in the world that enough is enough. The US and its Coalition has given the government of Pakistan enough time and resources to stop the breeding of terrorism from its soil but with no results. Now, it is time for intervention by a body constituted from agencies/experts of countries like USA, UK, Israel (which might be unacceptable to Islamic nations but they have considerable expertise in countering terrorism) India and Pakistan. This body would be stationed in Pakistan and the Pakistani Government should be made to co-operate; it is hardly in any financial position to refuse.

Compassion and the right to judge

I am woken up by a very plaintive but powerful cry from the street of a man seeking help about his son. I can't make out what he is saying. Appears to me to be something like police torture in connection with the Maoist attack on the Ministers' convoy in Midnapur. I come out on to the balcony. I see him. A poor man in a lungi. He has a small sheet of paper which he is profering to passers by who ignore him. It is a pathetic sight.

I go down to the street to see what the matter is. He is ahead of me. He has a quarter of a shirt on, that is the collar and the right half sleeve. Now I can hear him clearly. His son is sick and needs medicines which cost Rs. 370/-. He is squint eyed. I look at the paper. The prescription looks genuine. But his face gives him away. I ask him if he takes drugs. He is stunned. He seems not to understand. I ask him in Bengali, "Drugs? Do you take drugs? Medicines?"

"Yes. Medicines," he says.

I calmly tell him that what he is doing is not right and turn away. He becomes silent. That pathetic cry is stilled.

As I walk back I ask myself did I have any right to judge someone who was seeking help. Suppose he was really seeking help for his sick son? Suppose he becomes silent and goes away when he realises that people are taking him for a drug addict?

Strangers and close ones

I am again having my cigarette and tea at one of the tea shops near SBI, Dhakuria. From the corner of the left eye I catch a glimpse of an apple green silk sari. 'Exactly like the one my wife has,' I tell myself.

It is my wife.

It is strange to watch ones own wife, with whom one has shared twenty-five years, as one watches a stranger. She is tense and anxious to get somewhere in connection with her work as a direct selling agent of skin care products. A minibus appears and hesitates hoping to get some more passengers. She walks up to it. Does she ask the conductor something? The exchange doesn't seem to be satisfactory. I am concerned. I have seen her only at home as a girl who needs a lot of care. The smallest irritant upsets her. (If only I had noticed the warning before I had married her, 'Fragile! Handle with care.') And here she is out in the city. But I regain myself. I know she is adequately capable of looking after herself with that tongue of hers.

Observations:1

Just before where the Dhakuria flyover over the railway tracks touches down at Dhakuria, on the left side of the road going towards Jadavpur, a row of taxis sit on the taxi stand set up by the Party next to the bridge ahead of the 47A bus-stand. That place was a conventional pee-pot for long. After thirty years someone decided to set up a paid-toilet sort of a thing. But even that hasn’t sorted out the problem for Kolkatans who are so averse to walking a few steps (they must have a bus-stop every hundred/hundred fifty yards).

A road runs parallel to the bridge from Dhakuria station road. Along the pavement there is a row of tea-shops. I am having tea and a cigarette on a bench this glorious, blessed, quiet November late morning. I see a dignified old man (could have been a government officer or an officer in a PSU), nearing eighty, in old clothes though not faded, watering the remote rear tyre of a yellow Ambassador taxi.

Nothing wrong with that, except that he is half turned to the street to see whether anyone is watching him. I am. I see that makes him uncomfortable. I am not involved. He watches me watching him. I watch unconcerned. ‘Turn to the wall you fool,’ I tell him mentally. Then he turns around more fully to face the street as he tucks himself in, though I don’t see his pecker, only a touch of white of his unders. I see that he has done that intentionally as if to tell me ‘take that, you…’. But he is too much of a bhadrolok. That doesn’t permit him to show it to me.

* * *

I am in a queue waiting to get inside the ATM cubicle at Dhakuria SBI. High on the two sooty walls below the lone tube-light on the pipe for a cable and where the granite wall cladding ends a foot above the door level there are three or four rows of about thirty brown moths. Wings folded and all still.